Considering the recent Johor Bigfoot news was about the destruction of footprints, things have taken a positive turn, by week’s end. Reports of new encounters, a commitment to evidence preservation, and a May 2006 expedition make for an exciting roundup of Malaysian Bigfoot happenings.

Also, please turn off your cellphone while reading this blog, if you are in a rainforest.

First, let’s begin with the story of Kong Nam Choy, 38, who assisted the Destination: Truth expedition by leading them into the secondary rainforest on February 20th.

It was that trek near Kota Tinggi on which Joshua Gates and others found 11 tracks, allegedly, of the Johor Bigfoot and cast the one shown often by the media (below).

Kong was also the source of the first clear “Bigfoot” footprints (below) on a tar road in Kampung Temening on January 16th.

Kong, a construction worker, has become a full-time Bigfoot hunter, perhaps as fate would have it, a very lucky one, it appears. This month Kong guided a team of State Government officials including State Tourism and Environment committee chairman Freddie Long, to check for evidence of Bigfoot in Panti. Kong also claims that he saw the creature very recently.

Interviewed by New Strait Times reporter R. Sittamparam, Kong told of how at first he heard a rustling noise on a sloping hill at Kampung Lukut:

Fearing that it was an elephant I quickly hid behind a rock. It was then that I saw the Bigfoot which was more than three metres tall emerging from the jungle. It walked with a slight crouch like an old man.

I was shaking all over with fear thinking that the creature might come towards me. However, to my relief, it stopped about 30m away and sat down on a log.

Kong said the creature, which was covered in black hair, lifted one of its huge arms, the size of a man’s thigh, and began rubbing its face, a face that was framed with bushy eyebrows and long incisors jutting from its mouth.

It will be recalled that one of the local names for these unknown hairy hominoids refer to them being “snaggle-toothed.” This may be a reference to the large primate canines visible from the mouth.

Although I was scared, I managed to take out my camera and emerged from behind the rock. But before I could take a picture, my handphone rang. I panicked, fearing that the creature would come after me. But it just got up, glanced at me and hurried back into the jungle.

Sittamparam ends his article by mentioning that earlier in March 2006, two plantation workers at Ulu Sungai Johor claimed to have seen Bigfoot as they were going to the river for a bath.

Meanwhile, on the governmental front, after reports that “giant footprints” were being destroyed, that jungle was being flattened, and that tourists were being discouraged from looking for the local Bigfoot, the Johor Government has stepped forth to clarifiy this is not their official policy.

The Johor State Tourism and Environment Committee Chairman Freddie Long told the media this week he is fully committed to investigating the Bigfoot phenomena there, and destroying any evidence will not be condoned. He said they have not destroyed any footprints. Long said the bulldozing of a 10 meter stretch of rainforest, where “evidence,” including large tracks, were found on a tarred road and in muddy forest floor, could have been done by the land owner.

Noting he had visited the area, Long reacted to media claims that in some way there had been an official policy to stop Bigfoot tours to the area by telling the New Strait Times:

The land on which this evidence was found is private land and we have no jurisdiction to do anything there….We could not find solid evidence of Bigfoot there and we found that the people there remained unconvinced….As the Bigfoot “evidence” is largely on private land in Kota Tinggi, there is little we can do to promote Bigfoot tours.

The Bigfoot research steering committee has been searching the Johor jungles for evidence, Long noted. Since December 30, 2005, the Johor National Park Corporation and state Wildlife and Forestry departments have carried out short expeditions in the jungles of Kahang, Endau-Rompin, Lenggor, Padang Temumbun and Sungai Semerong.

Long said:

The Bigfoot research steering committee, which I chair, has decided to organize the state’s official Bigfoot expedition on May 15 to 20. A total of seven scientists from local universities in various disciplines such as zoology, primatology and IT will join the expedition together with relevant government agencies and representatives from non-governmental organisations.

Also, as opposed to earlier reports that the Johor State Government has banned foreign Bigfoot experts and enthusiasts from investigating the Bigfoot phenomenon in Johor, chairman Freddie Long said that was not true:

They can send in their applications to us and we will arrange for them to carry out their studies as soon as the local expedition is completed by the end of May.

Message to Malaysia: With all due respect, I am still waiting for an application. You have my emails.

The Johor Government has asked the media to publish this: Those with information on the Bigfoot are requested to call the State’s Bigfoot Research Committee’s hotline at 07-2222221. The Committee will promptly investigate any sightings.

To access all past postings on Cryptomundo on this subject, click on Malaysian Bigfoot.

About Loren ColemanLoren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013.

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2 Responses to “Jumping Johor Roundup”

my Dad is from Malaysia…and trust me they say PROMPT there it means when we finish our drip coffees and Lakksa noodles! This will string out for the next few centuries!!! Malaysia truely Asia!!! HAHAHAH…Prompt…*Laugh*